Down the Rabithole
by Artemis Rae
Summary: It is, quite possibly, the first conversation they ever have that's not about training, tests, jaegers, or kaiju, and Aleksis is suddenly faced with the realization that he likes his potential copilot.


**A/N**: So, a brief explanation before you read this: juxtaposie, my ever reliable beta, saw the movie before I did and went on and on about her headcanon and then I saw the movie and forgot that her headcanon wasn't, you know, ACTUAL canon, and then I couldn't figure out why there was only one or two fics that talked about this epic awesome backstory for our favorite Russians and then I started writing this and then I remembered that it was only her headcanon and nothing official.

Also, I was 3,000 words into this when Beacham said that Aleksis was older, so for the purposes of this series he's still seven years younger. If you think that's the most terrible thing I do to canon, I thank you. Wait til you see my fix-it fic. Also, please feel free to point out any terrible cultural issues, seeing as the majority of this was vetted only by Google and juxtaposie.

* * *

The news comes down over the weekend that their first attempt at a neural handshake is scheduled for Wednesday morning. Aleksis is nervous, but eager almost to the point of asking them to move it up; no one is sure when to expect another kaiju attack, but he wants to be prepared for when it inevitably comes.

He expects Alexandra to feel the same; he cannot imagine having come this far – weeks and weeks of aptitude tests, hand to hand combat, measurements and baseline readings, all with Cherno watching expectantly over them – only to return to square one, needing a copilot. He was still working through the initial personality and fitness tests when Marat Samovarov died during his first attempt at a neural handshake.

Aleksis saw him several times before he died – Marat and his sister Alexandra were the most prized recruits in their class, having outstripped all of their peers during the screening trials. They had since been propped up in front of subsequent classes in order to put on an encouraging, optimistic front. Marat had enthusiastically taken on the role; Alexandra, clearly out of duty. She treated everybody as if she were sizing up how long it'd take her to flatten them, while Marat at least acted like he'd ask their name first.

Either way, he was particularly kind to Aleksis, who was one of the youngest recruits there and the only one without a family member with him. Most of the students who applied for the jaeger pilot program either had outstanding IQ scores or were in extraordinary physical shape. Aleksis was one of a handful to be blessed with both – only a few people were able to get past his large build to realize the depths of the education he'd had growing up.

His grandfather and father were both engineers by trade – Grandfather had been called to the Chernobyl disaster, his father consulted on the Kursk explosion. Both worked to make sure Aleksis was knowledgeable, well-versed in the strength and potential of Man's triumph and ingenuity, but also aware of the impact of any mistakes when Man got too cocky and cut corners.

He lost his grandfather to thyroid cancer when he was prepubescent, and his father was rapidly succumbing to lung cancer. Aleksis suspects that has to do with his forty pack a year smoking habit rather than radiation exposure, but nonetheless it's why he applied to the program in the first place. He wasn't able to save his father, not with the cancer at stage four and settled into his formerly brilliant brain and steeped into his large bones, but maybe Aleksis could help save the rest of humanity. He wants to be a pilot, despite having no suitable copilot as an only child, and it's almost as a courtesy they are letting him train, putting him through his paces. Every day he isn't shuffled to the side to work on building the jaeger itself is a small victory.

Then the disastrous neural handshake occurred, and Marat Samovarov's sister was handed a box of medals in honor of her brother amid whispers of the August Curse. Instead of his calm, guiding presence in the training room, it is now Alexandra's piercing gaze and cautious grimace as she carefully and methodically dismantles every opponent in an attempt to find a new copilot. She was counseled, of course, with the trauma of being connected to her brother when he died, and at her own insistence they released her for training again.

Much like Aleksis, it's a courtesy. Their leaders were not optimistic about her chances of finding a new copilot, and it isn't by chance that they accelerated the curriculum of their current batch of recruits.

Maybe that's why they clicked: both knowing that they were on their last chances, both knowing they had exceptional potential but were missing one key component. Maybe it's fate, though Aleksis has never believed in such a thing. Either way, ever since the day that they battled to a stalemate in hand to hand combat, the program acted like they planned it all along when in reality it's a happy surprise.

He trusts Alexandra; she took him under her wing for the rest of their training, pushing him to run more miles, struggle against her for longer combats, and helping him study for complicated tests on mechanics, physics, and neurology. His success was her success, and now they've actually done it – reached the true test of their compatibility.

There is an air of expectation hanging over the base. Everyone is well aware that this is the first neural handshake ever initiated between recruits not related by blood.

It isn't scheduled for another thirty six hours, but Monday evening finds Aleksis pacing his bunk room, too nauseated to actually eat. There were no single bunks to give him when he arrived, the expectation being that family members would share accommodations, but his larger than average frame (and the bed they had to specially order) justifies such spacious quarters.

Across his desk he spreads textbooks, journals, personal notes – everything he's been able to get his hands on regarding a jaeger's makeup and the physiology of the neural handshake. He wants to be prepared; he wants to know what to expect so he can make this succeed.

Somewhere around 2100, nearing his hundredth lap through the room, someone knocks at the door. Opening it finds the not unpleasant but still neutral face of Alexandra Samovarova. Her hair has been carefully braided back, away from her face, and coiled into a bun at the nape of her neck, but she's dressed down in sweats and a pair of thick soled moccasins instead of the fatigues and heavy boots he's used to. She's carrying a duffel bag, which she delicately lays on the bed when he stands aside and allows her to enter.

"You were not at supper," she says in her usual clipped tone. She does not waste time with greetings. Aleksis doesn't take it personally anymore; this is how she talks to everybody. He has realized that if the person in question is not worth her time she will not speak at all unless absolutely unavoidable. Before he'd died, Marat had spoken for her much of the time, both out of necessity and to smooth over the awkwardness of his sister's silence.

He clears his throat before he speaks, but he doesn't look away. He's learned not to break eye contact. "I wasn't hungry," Aleksis offers, shrugging one shoulder and trusting her to hear the implied _and I'm afraid I'll bring it all back up in front of everybody in the mess hall._

Her gaze travels from his face down to his thick woolen socks and back up again. "Nonsense," she says shortly, and opens the duffel bag. First she offers him a knife and fork, before giving him a clear glass container, steamed cloudy from the warm food within. "Eat."

"Pelmeni." He is rather surprised by the dumplings he finds staring up at him. Food on base is rather plain and nondescript, if he were speaking in diplomatic terms. It's still better than half of what the poor scrabbling in the countryside gets, but to see something so traditional in front of him –

"I suspect it is actually lamb meat too, not horse or dog." She smiles grimly at him. This would have been a joke only five years ago, but the kaiju have not only destroyed cities. The world economies are in shambles.

He spears one and is surprised to find a taste similar to what his grandmother had hand-made when he was a child. Even lukewarm, it's one of the best meals Aleksis has had in recent memory. He wants to laugh; it almost tastes like they have cooked him a last meal.

Quickly, he clears a space at the desk so he can eat. Alexandra sits comfortably on his bed, and Aleksis has to remind himself not to be taken aback at her familiarity – they'll be sharing a neural connection soon anyway. She has an expectant look on her face. He puts the food down, half finished.

"Eat," she insists. "You'll need food in your stomach for what I intend tonight,"

With that she goes back into her bag again, and he hears the clinking of glass before she holds out her prize: a bottle of vodka, and two small glasses. He raises an eyebrow.

"That is good stuff," he observes. Alcohol, while still abundant, is mostly bootlegged now. What she is holding is a label that stopped production after blue blood poisoned all their wheat fields. "Expensive."

Alexandra balances the glasses on his bedspread and opens the bottle. She looks down into it, a contemplative look on her face. She opens her mouth once, and he glimpses white teeth through ruby red lips before she closes them. He waits.

"In another two days we won't have any secrets from each other," she says, and he studies her patiently as she speaks. The open bottle is dangling between her fingertips, and he thinks idly that if she drops it they will be saving for years to replace it. "Marat is my brother, and we knew each other so well, and yet –"

Alexandra cuts herself off, and pours a shot of vodka into a glass. With a resigned posture, she offers him one, and then pours herself another and knocks it back. "This will be easier with alcohol." He can hear how her teeth are grinding together in her skull.

She glances up, meets his eyes and reads the question lingering in them. "In two days we'll know one another's thoughts, our history, and our most embarrassing, shameful secrets," she says, and then she corrects her posture, sits up straight, crosses her legs. "But I don't want to wait two days. I want to… admit it all tonight."

He raises an eyebrow. She shrugs. "There is no sense in being surprised by it," Alexandra explains, her tone firm, no room for arguing. As if he would ever argue with her.

Aleksis drinks his shot then, welcoming the burn that spreads out pleasantly in his stomach. He doesn't have much experience drinking, but what he has tried has either been too watered down to make him feel good or made his tongue curl in numbness. This is real alcohol, the way it's supposed to taste. Wordlessly, he hands his glass back to her, and watches as she refills for both of them.

Suddenly he feels nervous; the gap in their age now feels like a chasm. She knows what she is doing; she actually remembers a short amount of her adult life when there weren't kaiju.

"So," Alexandra says, handing him a refilled glass. "Tell me a story, Kaidonovsky."

He understands her logic. Their deepest darkest secrets are going to be shared grudgingly in another thirty six hours – so to make it easier, to take away the stigma, she wants to share now, willingly. Swirling the clear liquid around in the glass, he raises an eyebrow. "What are you expecting to hear? How I ran around without any pants as a child?"

"Only if you're particularly embarrassed about that," she replies promptly. He thinks she's a little hurt, or anxious, that he's not more receptive to her idea, but the truth is he really has no idea where to start. There is lots of embarrassment in his past, a ton of normal human mortification and little bits of shame and horror that are more specific only to him, but pouring him a couple drinks will not bring forth his life story.

He tips back his drink. She swallows hard, and takes a sip of her own. "Marat." Her voice does not falter, and he admires her posture. He could not speak his grandfather's name for a full year after he died without his throat closing up, and the thought of his dying father puts a similar hole in his chest. Her brother's death is still so fresh and _talked about_ amongst the entire base that he's sure it is an exercise in restraint to mention him so casually in conversation. "Marat and I - we were very close growing up, even with a four year age gap between us. We looked after each other. I didn't think there were any secrets between us, not any big secrets, but – but I was wrong."

The official record of Marat Samovarov's death states that he suffered an aneurysm after initiating the neural handshake. The unofficial whispers through the base had spoken of Alexandra being pulled away from her brother's body, his blood on her hands, demanding to know _why_ from a fresh corpse. Now Aleksis wonders whether she was questioning his death itself or what she'd seen while connected to his mind.

Aleksis thinks suddenly that she is very brave. Not only dealing with the loss of her brother, but to face the very cause of his death all over again, with a stranger this time – he thinks, at the very least, he can give her this if it will comfort her.

"I ran away when my grandfather died," he says quietly, his chair creaking as he leans back in it. "I was only twelve at the time, but I didn't come home for a week."

It was an act of cowardice – he was a kid, and the passing of the grandfather who helped raise him was his first real taste of grief. Unable to face his father's sorrow, piled on top of being a child who didn't know how to handle his suddenly adult sized body, he found himself a veritable grenade of hormones and anger and pain and a new-found ability to punch holes through solid walls. Too many days he still feels like that out-of-control kid.

His heart pulses at remembering such a painful time, but Alexandra actually visibly relaxes at his words. He realizes suddenly that it's actually the most comfortable he's ever seen her, sitting crossed legged on his bed, one moccasin dangling from her toes as she balances the bottle on her knee.

"That's a long time for a small child," she remarks, the bottle hovering over her glass.

"I was just less than two meters tall by that point," he answers quietly. Suddenly feeling nervous, he downs the rest of his vodka and hands the glass back to her.

"You were a child!" she dismisses, but her tone is light, not judgmental. Tonight is not about judgment.

It gets easier the longer they talk – the longer they _drink_. It is, quite possibly, the first conversation they ever have that's not about training, tests, jaegers, or kaiju, and Aleksis is suddenly faced with the realization that he _likes_ his potential copilot. He has always admired her, her beauty, her skills, her determination, her brains, but it's somewhat of a surprise to get to know the personality that she keeps hidden beneath her icy exterior.

The alcohol helps. At some point, the glasses are forgotten, sitting on the dark carpet, twinkling in the harsh overhead lights. They pass the bottle back and forth, and though she never loses her poise Aleksis can see how imbibing is helping Alexandra to open up.

She tells him her own shameful memories – carrying on a flirtation with a man her father's age so she could use his car, and then wrecking it and returning it unapologetically. "I've always wondered what he told his wife," she says, somewhat mournfully, and Aleksis can't help the smile that creeps around the edges of his mouth.

She matches the movement, and that is when he realizes that her lipstick is smudged, just the tiniest amount, at the corner of her lip. He wonders if she is drunk, and then he wonders if _he_ is drunk. He doesn't think so – he still feels mostly normal, everything in focus except for the tiny blur at the corners of his eyes, and he doesn't feel like picking a fight or setting anything on fire or even like he'd stagger or fall if he tried to walk like he has seen many of his comrades do when they drink.

When he chuckles softly, her eyes narrow, as if to ask what he's laughing at. He shrugs, one massive shoulder rising and falling. "You are the woman my father always warned me about."

Aleksis knows this statement is true when she looks pleased and not insulted. "I didn't get into trouble," she says, but not defensively. "At least, I didn't get caught. But I did what I wanted."

"You were not worried about influencing your brother?" he asks, quirking an eyebrow, and ah – here, a flash of guilt crosses her face. Alexandra snatches the bottle off of him, scowling.

"You weren't worried about disappointing your father?" she snarls back at him, and that's when Aleksis realizes that maybe the alcohol is affecting him more than he'd thought – her brother's death is still fresh and he is practically taunting her.

"I –" he stumbles, knows instinctively she doesn't want an apology, because an apology would be acknowledging that he has taken advantage of her vulnerability, even by inebriated accident. "I used to steal."

Alexandra tips her head back and takes a long drag from the bottle, which he somehow interprets as a signal to continue.

"Started when I ran away, right? I was alone for a week. I stole so I could take care of myself." He stole resources that people _needed_ - food, clean clothing and blankets, and bundles of firewood that he never properly learned how to set alight anyway. It ended up wasted. He still felt guilty for that – someone had taken the time to chop it and stack it carefully next to the house, and he just took off into the night with it.

His father held a good job at one point. They weren't rich, but they were more than comfortable, and he provided Aleksis with everything he could want. And still Aleksis ran, uncomfortable with confronting true grief on top of the perfect storm of puberty and being the tallest boy in class and _hormones_ and a sudden, burgeoning need for independence. "I didn't need to though. My father would have given me whatever I asked for. But I thought – it was strong. To get things for myself. To fight people for them."

"Ah." Alexandra nods, understanding where he's coming from. "So you could prove you didn't need him."

"I did though," Aleksis says quietly, and he doesn't know if he's feeling ashamed to admit it or just feeling guilty for what he put his father through as a younger teenager. "If anyone tried to stop me I just –" he pounds his fist against the desk. "I think the only reason I was never arrested was because when I got caught I'd just knock them unconscious first."

"You haven't grown out of that habit," Alexandra remarks wryly, and they both laugh. The combat trials are tough and sometimes dangerous fights; the majority of the time he simply overpowers his opponents.

She avoids such a fate by being light on her feet, channeling her energy around him the same way a wave breaks over a boulder. Not equal, but complimentary. She's already given him two black eyes.

"I never had time for my parents," she says, swirling the bottle around to check how much is left. The answer is not much. "They never had time for us when we were little. I took care of Marat. So I didn't have time for them when I got older. I wanted to spit on them when they came to the funeral and Pentecost fawned all over them."

The thought of laughing, carefree Marat learning from somber, irritated Alexandra amuses him, but her face is very, very serious and he realizes she has continued to speak:

"I'm the one that helped him with schoolwork and taught him manners and made him eat his vegetables and stopped him from getting beat up. And then they showed up at that funeral when we hadn't even listed them as next of kin!" Alexandra stands up suddenly, rocks her weight like she's going to flee and ends up grabbing the post of his footboard to regain her balance.

She bites her lip, and Aleksis is alarmed at the uncertainty that is etched into her expression. He is used to, draws comfort from, her ability to be calm and intimidating in the face of chaos.

"Alexandra?" The silence in the room threatens to become so awkward that not even he can stand it. They are both used to making people uncomfortable with their quiet natures, but never each other.

"Aleksis," she finally says, licks her lips, weight her words. "You're going to know this in another two days anyway –"

She sits down again. Refuses eye contact. "The real reason I came here tonight –"

For a moment Aleksis is afraid she's playing a cruel prank on him, and humiliated anger momentarily turns his vision red.

But that's not what she's saying. "Marat and I were only drifting for five minutes before he died but –"

There is a stilted quality to her voice and Aleksis is horrified by the thought that she might be holding back tears. It makes him sit up straight, focus on what she's saying. Dimly he knows that this is what the evening has been driving towards, that she was both afraid of and aiming for this very conversation. She's been relying on the alcohol not only to dull his senses but to make her brave, and give her a scapegoat in the morning if somehow it goes all wrong.

"I taught him everything – absolutely everything – about manners and how to show respect and how to decide who deserves respect and how to treat your superiors and _women_ - when to flirt and when to be dignified, but mostly _respect_ and appreciation and _safety_ -" Alexandra lifts the bottle and now the vodka is all gone.

"When they initiated the handshake we saw everything about one another. Everything. And they tell you to go with the flow, not to single out memories or study the others but –"

Her voice drops, low and devastated. "Signing up for the jaeger program was all his idea. I was prepared to drink and party through the apocalypse, but Marat dragged me here and the day before we left a girl he'd been seeing told him that she was pregnant, and it was going to be okay because she would get rid of it."

Her leg is jiggling up and down and Aleksis watches in amazement. He's never seen her fidget before. "I got – I was _so angry_ with him – and then he was just gone. Just like that, the last thing wondering if she'd had the baby or not.

And now that's my burden for the rest of my life. All the doctors and scientists told me that this secret, this shame, hidden between us couldn't have caused the aneurism but –" Her shoulders sag and she gives him a sad smile. "What if it did? I couldn't bring myself to take the chance with you."

He's silent, the enormity of what she's confessed still sinking in. Alexandra gives a shaky, embarrassed laugh. "I sound superstitious, don't I?"

It is then that Aleksis decides that he will fight next to this woman everyday for the rest of his life. This amazing woman, who is willing to risk her life fighting monsters from the deep, and no one will ever know her single greatest act of bravery, willingly confessing her greatest fear before he could discover it on his own.

He stands up, and sits next to her on the bed. Reaching out, he puts his hand over hers, and it feels strange to initial physical contact with her that is gentle instead of a battle, but it doesn't feel wrong. She looks at him, her eyes bloodshot but also daring him to judge her.

"I'm only seventeen," is what he says. "I got a forged identification that says I'm nineteen so I could get into the program without anyone questioning my abilities."

"Tch." She clucks her tongue at him, her face both grateful and stern. Looking down at where his impossibly large hand still covers his, she says quietly, "Marat was only seventeen when the first kaiju attacked, and no one ever doubted his heart or his abilities."

She stands up then, disconnecting from him physically, heads for the door. He would offer to accompany her back to her bunk, but he strongly suspects she needs to be alone. It's right across the hall, anyway.

"I don't think anybody will doubt ours, either," he calls after her, and the door clicks shut quietly in response.


End file.
